Page 4 of I Love You in French

“Please, please, please ...” I whisper. “C’mon, Seb.”

He hears me—I’m sure of it—and he starts to turn back toward the train just as a very large family barrels through from the train car next to us, completely blocking my view.

“No, no, no!” I grab my bag and slip out of the car, practically sliding off the steps and onto the train platform. I’m on my toes, trying to see over people—and now a baggage cart on the platform—when I realize there’s no way I’m catching up to this man. He’s gone. And I didn’t even get enough of a glimpse to give a report to Lily—or to commit his perfection to memory.

I let out a sigh that ruffles the fringe falling across my forehead and close my eyes.

“That was him, you know.”

“Ah!” I jump and see the crew member with the intense brow beside me again. Why do I always attract people I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with? I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“You know? The one with the guitar case.”

“Yes, I remember,” I manage.

She inhales loudly, nails brushing across her pristine train vest. Are train vests a thing? They must be. “Quite a looker, that one.”

I groan. I swear there’s some amusement in her voice. She must get a kick out of these missed meet-cute moments all the time. If this were a fairy tale, she’d definitely be the villain—or at least the villain’s sidekick.

And because I don’t want her to feel the satisfaction of misjudging my frustration, I manage to quietly add, “How lovely.”

I’m halfway to my car when I realize that if Mystery Man has gotten off at this stop, he’s at least in the area. Maybe for an afternoon or maybe longer. He could have family in town, but that’s doubtful, as I’ve met everyone who’s a regular here at least four times. No one comes to Birch Borough without a reason. It’s too small. Too off-the-map. Maybe there’s still hope for a meet-cute after all.

Chapter Two

Sparrow

“I just want to go to Paris and fall in love with a Frenchman. Is that really too much to ask?” I announce to the bakery. My bakery, to be exact.

A few customers look slightly aghast, but the regulars barely glance up. They’re used to this sort of thing—my “announcements” into the universe.

The overhead bell rings, and I get hit by an overambitious child running out the door. No more croissants for him. His mother (at least I think it’s his mother) looks apologetic before pushing me out of the way to catch her little escape artist. I nod my understanding and motor toward the counter where Lily, my best friend, waits. Her light-pink apron that reads pain of chocolate—a take on pain au chocolat—has seen better days. It looks like she was in a war with some chocolate this morning. By the smear over her eyebrow, my suspicions are confirmed.

“Why does chocolate hate you so much?” I ask incredulously. I wash my hands thoroughly and try to let the lingering mental image of Graham wash down the drain with the bubbles.

She sighs as she arranges the pastries in the front case. “It’s not my fault chocolate is out to get me. But enough about me—who was he this time?”

“Huh?” I startle. Should’ve known I couldn’t hide this one.

“Your face. You always have that distant look when someone, aka a man, gets too close to your castle.”

“I don’t have a castle,” I reply. I do, though. I totally do.

She arches an eyebrow. “Look, I get it. You have very specific dreams and ideas about how your life is going to go.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t argue with me. Now my point is, you have ideas...but you can’t plan your life like this.”

“I haven’t planned anything! Anything I’ve planned has been shot down like millennials and their side parts.”

Lily huffs but turns back toward a vat of melted chocolate, her light-blonde hair swept up in a high ponytail. It sways as she walks and always will.

We met in the first grade and have been best friends ever since. I had lost my mother a year before and had withdrawn from the world. While in the reading corner of our classroom with a book about an American girl who goes to Paris, Lily was lying flat on a beanbag chair, looking up to the ceiling while having an existential crisis of her own. I asked her if she wanted me to read to her, and after a slight nod, she listened. It was meant to be.

When we discovered I was named after a bird and Lily after a flower, she made me a bracelet. We even have tattoos. I have a small lily on my left wrist, and she has a small sparrow on her right wrist. Neither of us has siblings, so that is what we are for each other. She’s wild, and chocolate seems to hate her, but she’s family, and I don’t know where I’d be without her.

I always wanted to take over the bakery my father and mother had started—which my father ran on his own after my mother was no longer with us—and Lily loves chocolate. Case closed. There wasn’t ever much of a discussion about it except to decide if we were going to change the signs (we didn’t) or if we were going to update the aprons (we did).

---